Since the 2016 election, pundits, preachers and politicians have been asking why more than 80% of white evangelical voters threw their support behind the most corrupt, ill-informed, vulgar and intentionally divisive politician in American history. Gradually, a consensus emerged. Donald…
Shelter from the storm: The Asbury revival as Woodstock 2.0
The Baptist church of my youth didn’t have a revival until we called a Southern Baptist pastor from Texas. Then we had a revival whether we liked it or not. I walked the aisle on the final night. At 20…
If Jesus wants us to forgive everybody, why is he always talking about hell?
I recently highlighted the Jesus-Joshua problem: Jesus wants us to love our enemies. Joshua wants us to slaughter them. Both can’t be right. But what about the demand for justice that reverberates throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation? If we…
Solving the Jesus-Joshua Problem
When I was an early adolescent, I decided to read the Bible straight through. I had been exposed to carefully curated snippets of Joshua, but the full genocidal thrust of the narrative was a revelation. I couldn’t help feeling sorry…
The gospel of universal compassion
A hybrid God An 82-year-old man is attacked by a hammer-wielding fanatic and political celebrities snicker and sneer. Nancy Pelosi has been demonized by the conservative movement so viciously, and for so long, that hyper-partisans like Donald Trump Jr., Kari…
The white church isn’t dying; it’s in exile
In mid-September, I returned to the church of my childhood, McLaurin Memorial Baptist Church in Edmonton, Alberta. The last time I had been inside the church was for the 1998 funeral of my mother. There are still a handful of…
Roger Williams and the courage to speak clearly
Roger Williams agreed with the Puritan overlords of Massachusetts Bay on most points of doctrine, but when his thinking diverged from accepted orthodoxy, he said so. Plainly and without apology. In The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, Peace and Truth are…
Roger Williams, the father of American deconstruction
If Roger Williams is remembered at all, it’s as a champion of church-state separation. In addition, a steadily declining circle of progressive Baptists honor the founder of Rhode Island as the original American Baptist. Both perceptions are a bit off-target….
Roger Williams, John Cotton and the future of the American experiment
In the fourth chapter of Luke, the devil led Jesus to a high place and “showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.” Next came the pitch: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory,…